


Welcome to Your Life (There's No Turning Back)

by indygoh



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Ark AU, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Impending Execution, Loss of hope, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, life contemplation, slight depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3234884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indygoh/pseuds/indygoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin is a dead girl. Or she may as well be. Her trial is in two weeks, and traitors aren't allowed to live on the ARK. But a new parole system is being implemented for the underage offenders, and Clarke will be the first delinquent to try it. She is determined to make this new system work for the other teens locked up in the Sky Box, even if there's no hope for herself. But things get complicated when the most selfish ass on the entire station is assigned as her parole officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I, Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to my first long fic! Yay! ARK AUs are my favorite, so I decided to try my hand at one. This fic is divided into five acts (so far, that's what's been planned out *sweats*) and each act will have 2-3 chapters each. I divided it this way so the chapters wouldn't be so daunting for you to read and for me to write. Also, the POV will switch between Bellamy and Clarke because certain scenes have to be from their specific points, but I will clearly mark who is who, and they won't switch in the middle of a scene.
> 
> Hopefully I'll be updating this once or twice a week, but you guys gotta keep me on it, okay? ;)
> 
> This story is inspired by the song, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Lorde, and each Act will have part of the lyrics at their opening. I highly suggest listening to it on YouTube to set the tone.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Welcome to your life_   
_There's no turning back_   
_Even while we sleep_   
_We will find you_

 

 BELLAMY.

 

 The first time Bellamy Blake sees Clarke Griffin, she is vandalizing the walls of her prison cell.

 "Prisoner 3-1-9, face the wall," he says in a gruff voice. It's the voice he's learned to use with criminals—dark, imposing, laced with authority.

 He was given a brief overview about Clarke before being given this assignment—daughter of a council member and the (former) lead engineer. She is elite on all counts: born and raised on Alpha station, the least-ratty clothes available, and plenty of ration tickets. He can see the way she is different from him and everyone else from Factory Station. How her skin has a healthy glow and her hair is well-kempt. Bellamy can't help but be annoyed at the fact that even in prison she remains next to flawless while the rest of them scrounge for scraps.

 Typical.

 But this girl, no matter how high ranking, is no different from the other delinquents in the Sky Box now, and he won't treat her like she is.

 He stifles the little satisfied smirk he feels coming on when she jumps violently at his booming command. Serves the privileged little girl right for doodling all over the pristine walls.

 "What is this?" she demands, eyeing the cuffs he unhooks from his belt. "No, _no_ , I don't turn eighteen for another two weeks, it's not time yet—"

 "I said, face the wall." Bellamy's hand hovers over his stun-stick, ready for a fight. He's escorted a few delinquents to their trials now, and he's concluded that any teenager can be completely docile while in prison, but then explode into violence the second they realize they're headed toward their likely execution. Bellamy's gotten a few black eyes in the past to prove it. His superiors just laughed whenever he came back with a new shiner, saying that it happened to the best of them. It was the quiet, cooperative ones that seemed to do the most damage, they had told him.

 He watches the blonde girl shake her head furiously, and prepares himself to take her down if he has to.

 "Clarke, honey, please stay calm," a quiet, soothing voice says from behind him. He recognizes the woman as Abby Griffin when he turns to investigate. One of the Council members who will preside over this girl's preliminary hearing.

 He wonders if there's some sort of protocol for this—for having a Council member's child being the one on the chopping block—but he snorts when he figures that it's probably never happened before. The privileged don't get into trouble with the Council. They had too many connections, too many advantages over the regular grunts.

 That is, until they floated Jake Griffin, the alleged traitor, two months ago. It had sent the ARK into an uneasy disquiet. Now no one is safe from the Council and Chancellor Jaha's reach.

 (Bellamy understands what that means more than anyone else, considering the secrets he is forced to keep).

 "Mom?" Clarke Griffin collapses into the older woman's arms, and Bellamy tries not to look away. "Mom, what's happening? They've decided not to wait, haven't they? They're floating me before I turn eighteen—"

 "No," Abby takes her daughter's face between her palms. "No, Clarke. They aren't floating you. The Council has decided to use a new parole system for the underage offenders. You will be the first to try it."

 "Parole? What does that even mean—"

 "Councilor Griffin," Bellamy interrupts. He coughs when the near identical looks of annoyance turn his way. "Ma'am, the Chancellor and the other council members are waiting." He knows he's being a hard ass, but showing up late to the girl's hearing won't look good to his superiors. It's imperative for him not to stand out in any way, to not be too good or too bad at his job. Blending in is essential, and Clarke Griffin being late because she wants to chit-chat with Mother Dearest isn't doing him any favors.

 "Right, of course," the older Griffin concedes with a nod. She allows Bellamy to step forward and lock a pair of cuffs around the younger girl's wrists. "Clarke, I'll talk to you after your hearing, okay? I'll be there the whole time, sweetheart."

 He steers the girl toward the door to her cell, and tries to ignore the small hands shaking beneath his palms.

 

* * *

 

 

CLARKE.

 

"Clarke Griffin, the Council has decided to release you under supervised parole pending your trial in two weeks when you come of age."  
  
Two weeks. Fourteen days is all she has. Then the Council will decide if her life is worth the oxygen spent on her.

 She knows that the odds aren't in her favor.

 "I understand," Clarke says blankly. This was the last thing she'd been expecting when the guard barged into her cell earlier that morning—when her mom had come to see her for the first time since she was arrested months ago.  
  
"We have assigned an armed guard to escort you to and from your classes, which you will continue with your age group. You will also continue your medical training. He will monitor all of your social interactions, and your behavior. He will report directly to the council about your activities."

In other words, they would remove the chains from her wrists only to lock her into even stronger ones—these would be shackles that move, breathe, speak. That Judge her worthiness to live on the ARK.

 "He has also been authorized to use deadly force on you, should you show any signs of criminal activity or aggression. Do you understand what that means?"

 "Yes," she says, her voice sounding smaller than she means it to.

 Clarke sees the guard that escorted her to the hearing shift a little in the corner of the room. He's been silently watching the proceedings since he removed her hand cuffs and deposited her in front of the council members and Chancellor Jaha. She wonders if the thought of a teenage girl being beaten makes the dark-haired guard squeamish.

 Not that it matters. One guard's opinion won't save her now.

 "You will not speak of the incident that led to your incarceration," Chancellor Jaha continues sharply. But his face softens a moment later. "I know this must be difficult, considering what happened to your father—"

 "Don't you dare talk about my father," Clarke snaps, finding her voice once again. The Council balks at her tone, leaning in to whisper about the upstart teenager: the traitor girl that they should have floated but couldn't because she was underage. Abby seems to squirm in her Councilor's chair. Clarke ignores them all. She only has eyes for the man standing at the head of them—the man who killed her father.

 The murderer sighs. "Miss Griffin, the flaw your father found in the ARK's oxygen system was fixed. There isn't any need to cause panic by spreading false rumors—"

 "But you still killed him!" She shouts. "You fixed the problem my father wanted to expose, but you still floated him!"

 "Because he committed _treason_ —"

 (The Chancellor is speaking slowly, as if trying to soothe a child throwing a temper tantrum. Perhaps that's exactly what she is, Clarke muses silently).

 "—The same crime you were planning to commit with him. We _must_ maintain order here Clarke, and that means upholding our laws. Treason is punishable by death. It's the only thing that has kept the ARK alive this long."

Clarke's eyes slant away. She can't argue with him. On the ARK, there is only so many resources available—only so much space. As the Deputy Resource Officer on the ARK, her father had explained things very carefully to her when she was young: in order to survive, everyone had to cooperate. There is no room for law-breakers.

 She understands that now, but it still leaves a bile in the back of her throat. What her father (and she, by extension) had wanted to do wasn't a bad thing—the people, _their_ people, had a right to know that their lives were in danger.

 Or so they had thought. A few days after her father's execution, Clarke had gotten a notice from the Council. The problem Jake Griffin had found with the oxygen replenishment system hadn't really been a problem at all. Just a simple redundancy coding that could be removed from the program and rebooted. Their best engineers and programmers were working on it.

 It took less than three days to fix the complication that her father had died for.

 At first, Clarke had refused to believe them. Jake Griffin was the most talented engineer on the entire station. He wouldn't have made such a huge mistake. He had checked and re-checked the system, looking for solutions, and had concluded that there was no fixing it—that the system failure would spell out their doom in a matter of months when the oxygen ran out.

 The Council insisted—spelled it out for her, showed her the lines of code that she barely understood, but could decipher thanks to the few lessons her father had given her. The problem was solved, they told her. There was no flaw.

 Jake Griffin had died for nothing.

 Soon, she will also die for nothing.

 (Ironic, isn't it. They are surrounded by light-years of empty space just outside the station walls. But there is no room to allow Clarke Griffin, The Traitor, to live.)

 Jaha stares her down.

"Do you understand the conditions of your parole?"

"What's the point of this? You'll just execute me when I turn eighteen. Why not lock me away with the other delinquents until my trial?"

 Abby Griffin winces from her seat. "That isn't certain. Your parole officer will be watching you, and will give a statement at your trial concerning your character and actions during your parole," she tries to smile encouragingly at her daughter. "It's a new system we want to try with the juvenile offenders—to give them a better chance," her mother repeats.

Clarke knows better than to take comfort in her mother's words—traitors aren't allowed to live on the ARK—but she feels a little ray of hope for the other teens locked away in the Sky Box. If anything, she hopes this new method of parole works for them. She never met any of them, as she'd been in solitary confinement, but she had watched her fellow delinquents from the little window in her cell door as they mingled in the common area below. They had laughed and hooted and fought like regular kids, but she could recognize the defeat in the hunch of their shoulders and in the blankness of their eyes.

 It is the same sense of hopelessness that all of them share—that Clarke feels at this very moment, standing in front of the seven people who would decide her fate in fourteen days.

 At least something good might come from her impending execution. Some of those kids can't be older than thirteen. They deserve a second chance—a fresh start. Even if she can't hope for the same.

 "I ask again," Jaha is saying. "Do you understand the conditions of your parole?"

  _Treason is punishable by death. You will not live past eighteen._

 "Yes, I do," Clarke answers, because there is nothing else left to say.

 "Good," Jaha slams the gavel onto the table, and it rings in her ears like a gunshot. "Mr. Blake, please step forward."

 The dark-haired guard from before walks toward her, and she watches him carefully. He wears the standard issue uniform, adorned in a heavy jacket and combat boots. The electric stun-stick swings from his belt menacingly as he strides into the center of the room like he owns it.

 "Miss Griffin, this is your parole officer, Mr. Blake. He will be shadowing and escorting you until the date of your trial, where he will be a character witness to the Council."

 Mr. Blake is tall, and with his slicked-back hair he seems older—maybe in his thirties. When he approaches her, she has to tilt her head back to meet his dark eyes, and for some reason that feels like a defeat—like she's giving him ground that she doesn't wish to surrender.

 He smirks down at her from above, as if he can read her thoughts, and she can't explain the instant feeling of hostility she has toward him, or why it zings through her veins and heats her blood until it's boiling under her skin. Maybe it's the judgment—the superiority she sees in his face, evidenced by the haughty tilt of his chin. Or perhaps it's the corner of his lips—that quirk up into a crooked smile that looks more like a snarl when he catches her glare—that sets her off. She only knows that the longer the guard stares down at her with those unreadable eyes, the more the burning animosity seeps into her bones.

 He holds out his hand.

 She doesn't accept it.

Mr. Blake just smirks at her, as if he isn't surprised at her reaction.

 Jaha clears his throat, and Clarke turns away from her new warden.

 "Now that we've established that, Clarke Griffin, you are dismissed from this hearing, and are hereby summoned to appear before this council in two weeks time to determine the punishment for your crimes." He slams the gavel again, and Clarke resists the urge to lunge for the damn thing and throw it at the nearest breakable object.

 Instead, she turns and heads for the exit. For a moment, it feels strange, like she will be tackled and taken back to her cell any second. Just for a second she contemplates running down the halls, stretching her legs for the first time in months, relishing in the slightly-more-open space, but then she hears Mr. Blake follow, and her delusions of freedom fly out the air-lock doors.

 As soon as the Council Chamber doors slide open however, she wishes that Mr. Blake would just haul her back to her cell. Because just outside the chambers, her (former) best friend is loitering, waiting for her.

 "Clarke, I wanted to talk—"

 "You shouldn't have come here, Wells," she says, cutting off whatever pathetic excuses he's about to make. Her heart begins to pound as emotions surge through her. Rage. Loneliness. Betrayal. She had trusted him—trust that only came with years and years of bonding and friendship—and it had shattered in less than a second when he went behind her back, told his father, the _goddamn Chancellor_ about her own father's plans to be honest about the ARK's condition. Then she had watched her dad die, because her best friend couldn't keep his mouth shut. Couldn't keep his _promises_.

 Humiliatingly, she feels tears begin to well up.

 "Look, I know I made a mistake. I didn't mean for Jake to be arrested—"

 "They didn't _arrest him,_ they _killed him_!" The people still gathered around them startle at her shout, but at this point she doesn't care. Wells looks at her like she shot him.

 Good. Then he knows how she had felt when she watched her father get sucked into the black, empty vacuum of space.

 She gets in his face, shaking off whoever attempts to grab her arm to stop her.

 "If you _ever_ talk to me, or come near me again, I will make you regret it. Do you understand?" she says menacingly. The words are quiet—meant for Wells' ears only—but she must say them too loud, because a few council members gasp at her violent threat.

 Clarke may have just sealed her own fate, but she can't bring herself to care. They're going to float her anyway. What's a girl with an expiration date care about the trivial matters that get her there?

 This time, she allows the strong grip on her arm to direct her down the hallway. She looks up and sees Mr. Blake smirking to himself.

 "What?" she demands.

 "Nothing." He shrugs, drops the smirk, and leads her back to her quarters.


	2. Act I, Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke have a chat with their respective loved-ones.

 

BELLAMY.

 

As soon as he deposits the princess back into her castle, Bellamy marches back to his compartment, trying not to scowl too much at the passing bystanders.

 He had only gotten a glimpse of the Griffin's quarters when Clarke ducked through the doorway, but that was more than enough. He spied a huge living space bigger than his and two of his neighbor's quarters combined, a state-of-the-art projector (probably one of the few remaining on the ARK that still worked), and a dozen cozy-looking chairs scattered around the room, no doubt for entertaining the other royals who visited the Griffins on the regular. They even have a small window to peer out at the magnificent view of their home planet.

 The differences between the compartments here and the ones on Factory station are laughable. He observes the walls change from a crisp, clean white, like the clouds that swirl around the planet outside the portholes, to a dingy, pale yellow that rot like last week's discarded rations.

 It makes him want to spit fire at everything that moves.

 Luckily for the potential victims of his ire, the one thing that can calm him down is waiting for him back at home.

 He looks up and down the corridor like a bandit on the run, before entering his family's compartment. He doesn't let out the breath he's holding until the door seals shut behind him with a resounding _whoosh_. He meanders to the middle of the room where their rickety dining table conceals the Blake's biggest secret. Their greatest treasure is sequestered safely under the floor.

 "Octavia? It's me, you can come out now," he says as he pushes the table strewn with sewing supplies out of the way. He hears an impatient huff from below, and he smiles.

 "About time. I thought you would only be gone for a few hours!" Octavia clamors out of the crawl space like a zombie rising from the dead and dusts off her clothes, though he knows there isn't a speck on her. He cleans that little cubby under the floor meticulously. It wouldn't due for his sister to breathe in a bunch of crap and get sick. He can't take her to the clinic if she does.

 "Sorry, O. You know the Council. Always taking their damn time to do anything important," Bellamy explains. He hugs his sister like he always does when he comes home from work, lifts her off the ground into a spin, and she squeals. When he sets her down she fakes a glare at him, and he smirks. She swats at his arm in retaliation, but it's like a kitten swiping at a grown dog and he laughs at her. This time the glower isn't faked.

 "So what happened?" she asks as she flops into one of the two identical metal chairs they own. "Before you left, you just said you were getting a new assignment."

 He rubs a palm down his face.

 "I was assigned as a parole officer to a delinquent offender," he tells her. "I have to escort her around to her classes and stuff."

 Octavia's eyes widen in interest and he winces. He's about to play the 'Tell Me All About The Outside World I Can't Ever See' game.

 "A delinquent? Wait, what does parole even mean?"

 "It means that she's free to continue living normally under supervision until her trial when she turns eighteen," he explains. Bellamy shuffles his feet, and his sister seems to catch the fidgeting.

 "Bell, I know your 'I'm not telling you everything because I want to protect you' face. Come on, fess up."

 Bellamy sighs. His sister is sharper than a bladed whip with spikes on the handle.

 "I have to report to the Council every day about her behavior." Bellamy recalls the look on the prince's face when the princess ripped into him, like a starving animal looking to kill its prey in the most gruesome way possible. It almost made him laugh right in front of everyone, but the panic had culled his amusement. Five minutes under his watch, and the girl was already causing a scene. It certainly wasn't conducive to his Don't Stand Out philosophy.

 "So far, she hasn't exactly been cooperative," he concludes.

 Now his sister's jaw drops open, and he plops down in the chair across from her. He rubs his hands together in his lap, trying to warm them up. Damn, their quarters always feel like, _two_ degrees above freezing their asses off. His mom tells him it's to conserve power by lowering the temperature to certain areas at different times, that the heat would come back after a while, but Bellamy doesn't really believe her. Section B-17 is always locked in shiver-inducing coldness, and the privileged are a bunch of selfish dicks keeping all the heat to themselves.

 "So, what you tell the Council could change the outcome of this kid's trial?"

 Bellamy starts when Octavia continues her inquisition. He considers her question carefully before answering.

 "It's possible, but not probable."

 "Why not? Your word is as good as any of theirs," Octavia grumbles, and he smiles gratefully.

 "It's not that simple," he tugs his fingers through his hair. He really ought to let his mom cut it soon.

 "Bellamy. You're doing it again. What aren't you telling me?"

 He sighs, defeated by the stern look on his little sister's scrunched-up face. "I was assigned to Clarke Griffin."

 She gives him a blank look and he almost smacks himself. He forgets sometimes that his sister has never been out of this room, that she wouldn't really understand the significance of the Griffin name because she's never even seen them on the news-casts before. They don't own a fancy projector like the royals do. He wishes he could get her one, so she could at least observe the people outside, but it's useless to hope for such things. People born in Factory aren't that lucky.

 "She's the daughter of a Council member. Her father committed treason and was floated. They say she's a traitor, too."

 "So she'll definitely be floated," Octavia looks down at the table, fiddles with a stitching needle she finds there. "She doesn't stand a chance."

 Bellamy doesn't miss the implied _Just like me_ in her words.

 "They won't kill her, Octavia. She's from Alpha, and a Councilwoman's daughter. They fixed whatever it was she was making a fuss about, so there isn't really a reason to off her now."

 "But she's a traitor, you said it yourself. The Council won't make an exception if they think it'll make them look bad."

 His sister was raised under the floor her entire life, but she isn't stupid. Her skill of observation is one of the things about Octavia that Bellamy is both endlessly proud of and constantly annoyed by.

 "They won't kill her, Octavia," Bellamy assures. She shoots him a skeptical look. "She's one of the privileged. And she's a doctor in training, apparently. She's a valuable resource for the ARK."

 Octavia seems to contemplate his words, but the deep frown on her face remains. So he reaches over the table and tussles her hair in the way she hates but secretly loves. She glowers at him, bats at his hands good-naturedly and goes about fixing her mussed locks. He stands up to go change out of his uniform. He's had about enough authority for one day.

 She halts him before he can slip away.

 "Promise me you'll help her. Like you would if it were me."

 He feels something in his chest crack at the thought of Octavia being in Clarke Griffin's shoes, but Bellamy just shakes his head. "I can't lie to the Council if she does something stupid, O. If they catch me, they'll want to know why. They might come here, sniffing for answers and you know what will happen. They'll float you and mom if they find you. I can't risk it."

 "I figured you'd say that," Octavia sighs and glances away.

 "Then why'd you ask?"

 "I guess I just know how she feels, is all. To be unwanted—to not have a place on the ARK," she says, and he sees her lip wobble just a little bit, like a dam about to crack under the pressure. Bellamy's eyes widen as he watches her green ones fill with tears. He rushes to his sister's side and kneels on the floor in front of her. He gently takes her hands into his, stroking his thumbs over her soft knuckles.

 "You will always have a place here, little sister." He tugs on one of her palms, places it on his heart. "I _promise_ , I will never let anything bad happen to you." _Your sister, your responsibility_ , his mother had told him as he held a whimpering Octavia for the first time. He knows his place in this world. It's in front of her, guarding her from all the dark things that seek to steal away her brightness. He will be the shield, because his sister the heroine in their story, and she needs _something_ to protect her. Even if it kills him.

 Her face lightens even though the tears silently roll over her cheeks, and he breathes again. "I know, Bell. You've told me that like a thousand times," she says. He scrubs the droplets from her face, and she catches his can, squeezes it. "You always say that when I cry."

 He stands and kisses his baby sister's forehead on his way up.

 "Because it's always true."

 

* * *

 

CLARKE.

 

When Clarke slips through her quarter's door, leaving a scowling Mr. Blake in the hall, she breathes a silent sigh of relief. Her heart is still pounding after her confrontation with Wells, and Mr. Blake's imposing silence on the way back hadn't helped anything. The people had stared at her as she was escorted down the corridors to her home, like she would lash out at them, like she would bare her fangs and bite at their soft flesh. Like a monster.

 Like a _traitor_.

 She tries to shake the thought away.

 Her eyes travel around her home, taking it all in. Not one thing is out of place. It's all arranged the exact way it was before... everything happened. Her father's desk on the far wall is still a cluttered mess. Her drawing supplies are still stacked haphazardly in the nearest corner. Their projector is playing a football game from over a hundred years ago, the athletes long dead by now.

 Everything is perfect with one glaring exception, and Clarke feels the hot tears begin to gather in the back of her throat.

 "Clarke? Honey, are you alright?" Abby sneaks in the door behind her a while later, and Clarke turns and nods into her mother's shoulder as the older woman wraps her up in her arms. Abby caresses her golden hair, the same bright yellow as her dad's was, and she can't stop the hiccupping sobs that escape her mouth.

 "I can't believe he's _gone_ ," Clarke whimpers. "He's gone, and I'll never see him again—"

 "Shh, I know, sweetheart. I know."

 "It's my fault, Mom. I told Wells. I thought I could trust him, but I was _wrong_ and I'm so sorry, Mom, I'm _so sorry_." The tears clog up her voice and she can't force out any other words. She just cries and cries into Abby's shoulder, until it feels like there's nothing left. Her mother remains silent.

 "Mom?"

 "It isn't your fault, honey," Abby says after a long pause. "You couldn't have known Wells would tell Thelonious about your father. If he had gotten the chance to speak out about the oxygen system, he would have been arrested anyway. There was nothing you could have done, baby."

 "I could have kept my mouth shut. It would have given him more time—"

 "More time to find a way to defy the Council. Your father was as stubborn as they come, Clarke. He would have told the ARK his secrets even if it killed him," Abby's voice cracks. "And it did."

 Clarke shakes her head and backs away, crossing her arms over her stomach to cover the empty feeling growing there.

 "Are you hungry?" Abby misinterprets Clarke's movement. "I brought some rations home, with the Council's permission. I thought we could eat here, away from... everyone in the Mess Hall."

 A great idea, considering she would have to call her _handler_ back here to escort her if she wants to go anywhere.

 "Yeah, that sounds good."

 Abby goes about setting their food rations on the table, pouring them both small cups of water from a carefully measured bottle. Clarke eyes the food, her stomach rolling like it's rebelling against the very thought of dining. Eating wouldn't bring her dad back. _Not_ eating wouldn't bring her dad back. So where does that leave her?

 Apparently, It leaves her sitting at a cold table with her mother, a noticeable absence between them evidenced by the third empty chair, munching on leafy greens that turn to acid in her mouth when she swallows.

 "Clarke, we need to talk about your parole."

 "Jaha explained it pretty well, mom," Clarke avoids looking at the _Councilwoman_. "There isn't much more to talk about."

 Her mom frowns. "You can't make any more scenes like earlier today. Your officer will be watching your every move, and he will be reporting to the Council—"

 "I couldn't just pretend nothing happened, Mom! Wells can't just come up and talk to me like we're still friends, like he didn't get someone I love killed," Abby flinches, but Clarke ignores it. "If he talks to me again, I'll—"

 "You won't do _anything_. You won't talk to Wells. You won't touch him, or fight him. You will _ignore_ him," Abby gives Clarke a stern glare. "They will _kill_ you, Clarke. If you don't act like the perfect citizen, they will float you, and I can't lose you too," Abby's voice wobbles as she begs. She puts her elbows on the table, and hides her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

 Clarke hauls in a deep breath like she's pulling in a heavy weight, and says "sorry, Mom. I won't do anything. But you have to know that my trial... They aren't just going to let me go. Treason is punishable by death. Being underage doesn't change that."

 "We don't know that, yet."Abby wipes her face, fiddles with a loose string on the sleeve of her shirt. "It will depend on how well you do on parole. If Mr. Blake has nothing but good things to say, the Council will take it into consideration."

 Clarke pictures dark hair, a confident smirk, and a deep voice and resists the urge to snarl. "And if he has nothing but bad things to say? What happens then?"

 "You won't give him any reasons to have bad things to say. Is that understood?"

 It won't make a difference what Mr. Blake has to say about her, but she nods her head obediently. Her mother relaxes into her seat.

 "Good," Abby gives her a small smile. "I have something for you. We've been taking more satellite pictures of the ground." She passes Clarke a folder. "They all look extremely promising. The trees are growing healthily, and the water looks clean. Clarke, Earth might be very close to being able to sustain life again."

 Clarke flips through the pages, drinking in each picture like a woman possessed. Sometimes late at night, her father would come into her room when she couldn't sleep, and he would show her pictures of forests, mountains, and rivers. The images were so vivid that she started to draw them on any flat surface she could find. The walls, the floors, the counters. For a while, the Griffin's quarters were covered in charcoal images of old Earth until Chancellor Jaha said that vandalism was to be discouraged, and her mother washed them all away with a harsh-smelling cleaner. It hadn't stopped her father from trading some of their rations for a notebook for her.

 Clarke could still remember the smile and wink he gave her when he handed over the book of blank pages for her to fill, the thrill of endless possibilities flowing through her mind.

 She couldn't see the details in these pictures—the trees were just tiny dots against brown earth, the oceans just big, blue swaths on the page—but the blues, and browns, and greens blended together so harmoniously it took her breath away.

 Clarke moves slowly over to the small porthole in their living area. She holds up the pictures against the view of the real thing, and wonders.

 "Do you think you'll ever go back?" Clarke speaks aloud, though she doesn't intend to.

 Abby joins her by the window, touches her daughter's shoulder. Clarke hopes her mother missed her use of "you" and not "we" because she knows she'll never see the ground, not in the next two weeks. After that, well. She won't be around to find out.

 "I think that our home has a way of healing itself," Abby says, and Clarke has a feeling she isn't speaking solely of Earth. "I think it's only a matter of when."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Another one down. Let me know what you think! I know this one is a little slow, but the Bellarke is coming, I promise. There's just a little assembly required, first. ;) I have to draw the parallels between certain characters. They will be important later, methinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Love it? Hate it? Kill it with fire? ;)


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